Time Request Queue

ABSTRACT

A group scheduling solution offers an organized and formalized solution to the time management problem in which the desired meeting includes a person who is difficult to schedule. A scheduling system is provided in which a hard-to-schedule attendee takes over responsibility for setting the start time of an event. A workflow is provided, in which the organizer sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person. The request contains the desired duration of the meeting, and possibly a list of attendees, location, and other details. These requests are maintained in a queue for the hard-to-schedule person. The hard-to-schedule person, or their proxy, reviews these requests and selects a suitable time for the meeting, thereby causing an update to be sent back to the organizer and the other attendees, thus indicating the appointed time for the meeting.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The invention relates to the scheduling of meetings. More particularly,the invention relates to a time request queue for scheduling a meetingwith a hard-to-schedule person.

2. Description of the Prior Art

There are people in every organization with whom it is very difficult toschedule time. Typically, these people have administrative assistantsthat manage their time. Though group-scheduling software exists today,booking a meeting with these hard-to-schedule people typically requirescontacting the administrative assistant by some alternate mechanism,such as telephone or email, and then requesting the meeting to bescheduled. This is not a big problem in isolation. But as many suchmeeting requests pile up, considerable time is spent by theadministrative assistant in managing the requests and allotting time foreach request. Should the scheduled time need to change, as it oftendoes, a lot of time is spent trying to communicate the change of plansto those affected.

Currently, in group scheduling software a meeting organizer fills out ameeting request by proposing a date and time for the event to a list ofattendees who, in turn, accept or decline the request. In all commercialgroup scheduling software today, the organizer is the only person whocan set any detail of the meeting, i.e. the start time, the duration,the meeting title, the descriptive text, etc.

It would be advantageous to provide a group scheduling solution thatoffers an organized and formalized solution to the above described timemanagement problem, in which the desired meeting includes one person whois difficult to schedule.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The presently preferred embodiment of the invention provides a groupscheduling solution that offers an organized and formalized solution tothe time management problem above mentioned, in which the desiredmeeting includes one person who is difficult to schedule. In theinventive approach, a scheduling system is provided in which ahard-to-schedule attendee takes over responsibility for setting thestart time of an event.

In the invention, a workflow is provided as follows:

-   -   The organizer sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person.        The request preferably contains the desired duration of the        meeting. The request may contain a list of attendees, location,        and other details.    -   These requests are maintained in a queue for the        hard-to-schedule person. Batching requests in a queue is a key        feature of the invention. The hard-to-schedule person, or their        proxy, can then review these requests and select a suitable time        for the meeting, set this time in a meeting request, thereby        causing an update to be sent back to the organizer and the other        attendees, thus indicating the appointed time for the meeting.    -   The organizer of the meeting can still update the meeting        details, etc. However, any changes in the start time or the        duration of the meeting must be made by the hard-to-schedule        person or their proxy.

Note: The hard-to-schedule person can also decline the meeting entirely.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing the scheduling of a meeting using atime request queue according to the invention; and

FIG. 2. is an illustration of a screen display for a calendar and timerrequest queue according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The presently preferred embodiment of the invention replaces state ofthe art group scheduling software, in which a meeting organizer fillsout a meeting request by proposing a date and time for the event to alist of attendees who, in turn, accept or decline the request, with anew approach in which the hard-to-schedule attendee takes overresponsibility for setting the start time of the event.

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing the scheduling of a meeting using atime request queue according to the invention.

The preferred workflow is as follows:

-   -   The organizer 100 sends a request to the hard-to-schedule person        105, e.g. a vice president of the company. The request must        contain the desired duration of the meeting, e.g. one hour. The        request may contain the list of attendees, the location, and        other details.    -   These requests are maintained in a queue for the        hard-to-schedule person 110. The hard-to-schedule person, or        their proxy, e.g. an administrative assistant, can then review        these requests and select a suitable time for the meeting 115,        e.g. 10:00 AM Monday, set this time in the meeting request 120,        causing an update 125 to be sent back to the organizer and the        other attendees indicating the appointed time 130.    -   The organizer of the meeting can still update the meeting        details, etc. 130, for example to add attendees or change the        conference room location of the meeting, and the meeting can        proceed as scheduled 135. However, any change to the start time        or duration of the meeting 140 must be made by the        hard-to-schedule person, or their proxy 110. The        hard-to-schedule person can also decline the meeting entirety.

EXAMPLE Step 1

Bill wants to set up a meeting with a couple of people on his team andwith Joe, a hard-to-schedule vice-president. Bill goes into thecalendar/scheduling program and creates the special time request. It iscreated very much like any other meeting, except that a specific startdate/time is not set. Bill adds himself, his team, and Joe as attendeesof the meeting. Bill indicates that the meeting will take one hour. Billalso marks Joe as a special attendee who can set the meeting time.

Step 2

After Bill creates the time request, it shows up on Joe's calendar. Timerequests are collected and held until the attendee who can set themeeting time does so. FIG. 2 is an illustration of a screen display fora calendar and timer request queue according to the invention. On theleft side 14 of the screen 10 is a view of two days, though it could beany of a variety of schedule views provided by calendar applications,such as a day, a week, or a month. It is shown as a reference to whatmeetings are currently scheduled.

On the right side 12 of the screen is a list of the time requests thathave not yet been assigned a specific time. The list shows the length oftime requested, the requester, and the title of the meeting. Bill'smeeting is highlighted by clicking it. The meeting request could bedragged and dropped onto the left side of the screen to assign it to aparticular time or it could be double-clicked to bring up a moredetailed dialog box in which the time can be set. Once the time requesthas been assigned a timeslot, it moves out of the time requests list andinto the schedule.

Step 3

Joe schedules the request for 11:30 on Wednesday, October 31. Once thisis done, Bill is alerted that his time request has been scheduled. Themeeting request now shows up in all the attendees' schedules at theappointed time.

Many variants of the invention are contemplated. For example, it isoften the case that an administrative assistant handles the schedulingrequests and manages the calendars of others. The time request queue canbe managed by an administrative assistant. Another embodiment involvesvarying the specific details that the hard-to-schedule attendee can set.For instance, it may be that the in addition to the start time, thelocation for the meeting is also set by the hard-to-schedule attendee.

There are also other usage scenarios. For example, a person who wants totake his car in for a checkup. Typically, there are certain preferencesthat the repair shop has, such as the shop's hours of operation and/orworkload, subject to some of the preferences of the person who isarranging to take in his car, such as the time of day of day of week.The invention is applicable to the scheduling of an appointment with therepair shop, or any other service. Thus, the person who desires anappointment for service need only submit a request to the time requestqueue, and an appointment is scheduled based upon the schedule of theservice, or alternatively based upon the preferences of the customer.This could include such things as setting an appointment to get a haircut, where the appointment must be Tuesday nights between certain times.

The invention seeks to satisfy the customer preferences and theservice's schedule, relative to these criteria. Thus, the hard toschedule individual, for example a doctor, can set a time and/or place,but subject to various requirements of the requestor. In such case, theneeds of both parties may not overlap and the meeting may not takeplace. In such case, the requestor may provide alternatives or may rankhis preferences to help accommodate the needs of the difficult toschedule person. Further, the hard to schedule person may have someflexibility in his schedule and could provide the requester with one ormore alternatives, such as different times, days, and/or locations. Theinvention also supports a collaborative agenda, where the hard toschedule person may receive a proposed agenda with the request, and insetting the meeting time and/or place, may include a revised agenda withthe meeting notice sent to each attendee.

Although the invention is described herein with reference to thepreferred embodiment, one skilled in the art will readily appreciatethat other applications may be substituted for those set forth hereinwithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.Accordingly, the invention should only be limited by the Claims includedbelow.

1. A method for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees, wherein theset of attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additionalattendee, the method comprising: generating a meeting request to beprocessed by a special attendee, wherein the meeting request designatesthe special attendee as a recipient of the meeting request and whereinthe meeting request does not specify meeting commencement information,the meeting commencement information comprising at least one of a starttime and a date, and further wherein the meeting request is acceptableby the special attendee to place a calendar event on a calendaringapplication; obtaining a selection by the special attendee of themeeting commencement information responsive to the meeting request; andgenerating an updated meeting request specifying the selected meetingcommencement information, wherein the updated meeting request isgenerated for transmission to the at least one additional attendee andis acceptable by each at least one additional attendee to place acorresponding calendar event on a calendar application, wherein each ofthe steps is implemented by group scheduling software executed on acomputer.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the meeting request includesa duration of the meeting.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the meetingrequest includes an identification of the set of attendees designated toattend the meeting.
 4. The method of claim 3 further comprisingobtaining from the special attendee a modification to the identificationof the set of attendees responsive to the meeting request, whereingenerating the updated meeting request comprises generating the updatedmeeting request for distribution to the at least one additional attendeeidentified in the modified set of attendees and not the specialattendee.
 5. The method of claim 1 further comprising causing themeeting request to be displayed to the special attendee in a meetingrequest queue on a calendar application on a computer screen display. 6.The method of claim 5, wherein the meeting request is to be displayed inthe meeting request queue until the meeting commencement information isselected by the special attendee.
 7. The method of claim 5 furthercomprising causing at least one calendar view to be displayed to thespecial attendee adjacent to the meeting request queue on a calendarapplication on a computer display screen, the at least one calendar viewproviding a reference to a set of scheduled meetings including at leastone of the start time and date of each scheduled meeting.
 8. The methodof claim 7, wherein the selection of the meeting commencementinformation comprises moving a graphical display object associated withthe meeting request from the meeting request queue to another locationon the computer display screen associated with the at least one calendarview to assign the meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.9. The method of claim 1, wherein the meeting request includes a meetingagenda.
 10. The method of claim 9 further comprising obtaining from thespecial attendee a modification to the meeting agenda responsive to themeeting request, wherein generating the updated meeting requestcomprises generating the updated meeting request including the modifiedmeeting agenda
 11. In a messaging environment corresponding to a set ofattendees, wherein the set of attendees includes a special meetingattendee and at least one additional meeting attendee, the at least oneadditional meeting attendee including a meeting organizer, a systemcomprising: a computer executing group scheduling software, wherein uponexecution of the group scheduling software, the computer is operable to:cause distribution of a meeting request to be processed by a specialattendee, wherein the meeting request designates the special attendee asa recipient of the meeting request and wherein the meeting request doesnot specify meeting commencement information, the meeting commencementinformation comprising at least one of a start time and a date, andfurther wherein the meeting request is acceptable by the specialattendee to place a calendar event on a calendaring application; obtaina selection by the special attendee of the meeting commencementinformation responsive to the meeting request; and cause distribution ofan updated meeting request to the at least one additional attendee,wherein the updated meeting request specifies the selected meetingcommencement information and is acceptable by each at least oneadditional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on acalendar application.
 12. system of claim 11, wherein the meetingrequest includes a duration of the meeting.
 13. The system of claim 11,wherein the meeting request includes an identification of the set ofattendees designated to attend the meeting.
 14. The system of claim 13,wherein the computer is further operable to obtain from the specialattendee a modification to the identification of the set of attendeesresponsive to the meeting request, wherein causing the distribution ofthe updated meeting request comprises causing the distribution of theupdated meeting request to at least one additional attendee identifiedin the modified set of attendees and not the special attendee.
 15. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein causing the distribution of the meetingrequest comprises causing the meeting request to be displayed to thespecial attendee in a meeting request queue on a calendar application ona computer screen display.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein themeeting request is to be displayed in the meeting request queue untilthe meeting commencement information is selected by the specialattendee.
 17. The system of claim 15, wherein causing the distributionof the meeting request further comprises causing at least one calendardisplay to be provided to the special attendee adjacent to the meetingrequest queue on a calendar application on a computer display screen,the at least one calendar view providing a reference to at least one ofan available start time and an available date associated with thespecial attendee and the meeting request queue providing a reference toonly a set of non-scheduled meeting requests.
 18. The system of claim17, wherein the selection of the meeting commencement informationcomprises movement of a graphical display object associated with themeeting request from the meeting request queue to another location onthe single computer display screen associated with the at least onecalendar view to assign the meeting request to at least one of a dateand a time.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the meeting requestincludes a meeting agenda.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein thecomputer is further operable to obtain from the special attendee amodification to the meeting agenda responsive to the meeting request,wherein causing the distribution of the updated meeting requestcomprises causing the distribution of the updated meeting requestincluding the modified meeting agenda.
 21. method of claim 1, whereingenerating an updated meeting request comprises automatically generatingan updated meeting request in response to obtaining selection of themeeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 22. The systemof claim 11, wherein the computer is operable to cause distribution ofthe updated meeting request automatically in response to obtainingselection of the meeting commencement information by the specialattendee.
 23. The method of claim 1, wherein the software allows onlythe special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee to make amodification to the commencement information originally selected by thespecial attendee, and wherein a meeting organizer responsible forgenerating the meeting request cannot make the modification.
 24. Themethod of claim 1 further comprising causing distribution of the updatedmeeting request to only the at least one additional attendee and not thespecial attendee.
 25. The method of claim 24, wherein the at least oneadditional attendee comprises a meeting organizer from which the meetingrequest originated.
 26. The method of claim 24, wherein the at least oneadditional attendee comprises a meeting organizer from which the meetingrequest originated and at least one further additional attendee.
 27. Themethod of claim 1 further comprising causing the display of the updatedmeeting request in at least one schedule view on a calendar applicationon a computer display screen for each of the at least one additionalattendee automatically upon selection of the meeting commencementinformation by the special attendee.
 28. The method of claim 26, whereincausing distribution of the updated meeting request comprises: causingdisplay of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view ona calendar application on a computer display screen for each of the atleast one further additional attendees automatically upon selection ofthe meeting commencement information by the special attendee.
 29. Amethod for scheduling a meeting for a set of attendees, wherein the setof attendees includes a special attendee and at least one additionalattendee, the method comprising: generating a meeting request from ameeting organizer to be processed only by the special attendee or aproxy of the special attendee, wherein the meeting request includes anidentification of the at least one additional attendee and wherein themeeting request does not specify meeting commencement information, themeeting commencement information corresponding to at least one of astart time and a date, and further wherein the meeting request isacceptable by the special attendee to place a calendar event on acalendaring application; obtaining a selection from the special attendeeor the proxy of the special attendee of the meeting commencementinformation responsive to the meeting request; and in response toobtaining the selection of the meeting commencement information,automatically causing distribution of an updated meeting request only tothe at least one additional attendee, wherein the updated meetingrequest specifies the selected meeting commencement information andwherein the updated meeting request is acceptable by each at least oneadditional attendee to place a corresponding calendar event on acalendar application, wherein each of the steps is implemented by groupscheduling software executed on a computer.
 30. The method of claim 4,wherein the updated meeting request is automatically generated inresponse to obtaining the modification from the special attendee. 31.The method of claim 1, wherein the special attendee is the onlyrecipient of the meeting request.
 32. The method of claim 8 furthercomprising causing display of the updated meeting request in at leastone schedule view on a calendar application on a computer display screenfor each of the at least one additional attendee automatically uponselection of the meeting commencement information by the specialattendee.
 33. The method of claim 32, wherein causing the display of theupdated meeting request occurs automatically in response to movement ofthe graphical display object associated with the meeting request fromthe meeting request queue to another location on the single computerdisplay screen associated with the at least one calendar view to assignthe meeting request to at least one of a date and a time.
 34. The systemof claim 14, wherein causing distribution of the updated meeting requestcomprises automatically causing distribution of the updated meeting inresponse to obtaining the modification from the special attendee. 35.The system of claim 11, wherein the special attendee is the onlyrecipient of the meeting request.
 36. The system of claim 18, whereincausing distribution of the updated meeting request comprises causingdisplay of the updated meeting request in at least one schedule view ona computer display screen for each of the at least one additionalattendee automatically upon selection of the meeting commencementinformation by the special attendee.
 37. The system of claim 36, whereincausing the display of the updated meeting request occurs automaticallyin response to movement of the graphical display object associated withthe meeting request from the meeting request queue to another locationon the single computer display screen associated with the at least onecalendar view to assign the meeting request to at least one of a dateand a time.
 38. The method of claim 21, wherein the meeting request tobe processed by the special attendee is generated in response to arequest from a meeting organizer and wherein the updated meeting requestis automatically generated without further interaction from the meetingorganizer.
 39. The method of claim 22, wherein the updated meetingrequest is automatically caused to be distributed to the at least oneadditional attendee without further interaction from the meetingorganizer.
 40. The method of claim 29, wherein the updated meetingrequest is automatically caused to be distributed without furtherinteraction from the meeting organizer.
 41. A method for scheduling ameeting for a set of attendees, wherein the set of attendees includes aspecial attendee and at least one additional attendee, the methodcomprising: generating, by a meeting organizer, an initial meetingrequest to be placed as a calendar event in a calendar event queue on acalendaring application and to be processed only by a special attendeeor a proxy of the special attendee, wherein the initial meeting requestdoes not specify meeting commencement information, the meetingcommencement information comprising at least one of a start time and adate; obtaining a selection by the special attendee of the meetingcommencement information responsive to the initial meeting request,wherein the selected meeting commencement information is modifiable onlyby the special attendee or a proxy of the special attendee and whereinthe meeting organizer cannot make the modification; and in response tothe obtained selection of meeting commencement information,automatically generating, without further interaction from the meetingorganizer, an updated meeting request specifying the selectedcommencement information, wherein the updated meeting request isgenerated for transmission to the at least one additional attendee andis acceptable by each at least one additional attendee to place acorresponding calendar event on a calendar application; wherein each ofthe steps is implemented by group scheduling software executed on acomputer.